Samuel L Jackson has been, at least since Pulp Fiction, one of the foremost fonts of four-letter filth. If you listen really closely, you can hear ‘Muthafucka’ as Mace Windu is betrayed by Anakin Skywalker. Of course there is also the Snakes on a Plane quote* and his being chosen to narrate the audiobook of Go the Fuck to Sleep.
Samuel’s immediate predecessor was probably the late, great Richard Pryor. His comedic cussing capabilities set the stage for a generation of Black comedy. Pryor begat Eddie Murphy who begat Chris Rock and so forth.
These are two of the all time greats verbalizers of vulgarities. So I ask that you post your thoughts about your favorite exclaimer of expletives; orator of obscenities; utterer of ugly, uh, utterances.
*Enough is enough! I have had it with these motherfucking snakes on this motherfucking plane!
I am amazed at what Jon Stewart gets away with through a combination of bleep-outs and the cover of comedy. Every now and then he makes a reference to “skull-f@#$ing” or something similarly beyond the pale and I just cringe since my just-teen kid gets his politics from that show.
Ian McShane in Deadwood as Al Swearengen. James Gandolfini’s Tony Soprano. Not that they were the only profane characters in their respective TV shows, but they certainly stood head and shoulders above the rest.
I remember a fuss in the mid-1970’s, when he appeared at the Minnesota State Fair Grandstand show. The Fair had hired him based largely on his TV appearances, and discovered that his in-person show had a lot more profanity & risqué jokes. Enough that it bothered some of this Minnesota audience, which included a lot kids.
The Fair Board & Federation officers had an emergency session to decide what they could do about this. In the end, they just asked him to ‘tone it down’ a bit. That didn’t really work; Redd was so used to talking this way that he didn’t even notice that he was using profane language. But it turned out OK; rural Minnesota Lutherans stayed until the end of his show, then told everyone how shocked & upset they were. And tickets sold out.